Zdeněk Marek

* 1929

  • “Ï served at the American airbase in Wiesbaden, then in Fürstenfeldbruck, that was their biggest airbase. They had fighter planes there, it was terrifying when they took up into the sky. I served there, it made one deaf more often than not. They were ready for anything. I respect them, people like that.”

  • “They kept wheedling me. There was a small German house beyond the borders. They kept wanting me to do them a service. I had a sudden thought and said to myself: ‘I’ll give you a service.’ He was some sort of chief of counter-intelligence, and I told him: ‘Sure thing, I’ll do it, if you come with me.’ He backed up, said: ‘I can’t do that.’ So I said: ‘Well I can’t either.’ ”

  • “The Retributioners [former, mostly German members of the Nazi-approved National Compact, the only Czech party allowed during WW2 - transl.] were still there. I remember that.” (Q: “How did you get on with them?”) “We got on very well. They were far better than our own people. They were in prison too. Just they would say: ‘We kept telling you what the communists are.’ ”

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    Deštné v Orlických horách, 24.11.2013

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As if I was trained for escapes

Zdeněk Marek
Zdeněk Marek
zdroj: Pamět národa - Archiv

Zdeněk Marek was born on 26 June 1929 in Valča, Slovakia. His father worked at the railway, his mother died early of cancer and the family moved to Nymburk. His father committed suicide because of a false accusation of embezzlement. Zdeněk was then brought up by his older siblings. In 1945 Zdeněk‘s brother came to visit from abroad - he had met a Belgian woman when doing forced labour in Nazi Germany, they had married and settled down in Belgium. He urged Zdeněk to come with him to Belgium, which he did. He lived with his brother for some time and then moved to Germany, where he found employment as a security guard at an American airbase. The Americans gave him training and Zdeněk undertook several crossings of the Czechoslovak-German border near Domažlice. He was supposed to find new operatives for the Americans in Czechoslovakia. But in the end he was overcome by homesickness and so decided to make use of the offer of a full pardon for returned emigrants. He went back, but was arrested at the airport in Prague and during the subsequent trial was sentenced to five years of prison for espionage. He was imprisoned in Svatoňovice near Trutnov, Kartouzy, Vinařice, and in a uranium mine in Jáchymov. He attempted to escape from Vinařice and his sentence was thus extended by another two years. In the end he was released on probation and left to work in a coal mine in Litvínov. There he met his future wife Anna. Together they settled down in Deštná in the Orlické Mountains, where the witness was employed as a forest worker until his retirement.